Disclaimer: This is a text written 100% by a human, and yet 97% of AI help with the translation. The blame for errors and questionable opinions cannot be attributed to anyone other than the person who types and signs the authorship of the post.

We are going through a new phase of digital transformation, predictable, but uncomfortable because it highlighted the reality that some areas until then considered 100% “human” are obsolete. Amongst them? The creation. After all, we are increasingly using artificial intelligence alternatives and if we thought that we would be irreplaceable by machines when it comes to empathy and creativity, we were wrong. If you’re even minimally informed, you’ve already realized that ChatGPT is the “beast” of the moment and that for writers and creatives, it has generated yet another “threatened” market if we don’t open our minds.

ChatGPT is the English acronym for chat generative pre-trained transformer, which is nothing more than content created by Artificial Intelligence capable of maintaining detailed, articulate, and creative conversations and the result has been both praised and feared since it was launched at the end of 2022. Effectively it is the “robot” that thinks, reacts, and creates that movies, series, and books have long warned us to fear and be in awe. Until then, “artificial intelligence could read and write, but could not understand the content”. Everything changed just over six months ago. Are you following?

So, with such advanced “reasoning power”, with ChatGPT computers do more than “imitate a human conversation”, they can write scripts, reports, and music. There have already been people who tested how they would have made the final season of Game Of Thrones because, after all, the one signed by humans is still criticized today. That is, scripts for films and series would not need writers, perhaps just an executive – not even a showrunner – who would establish the parameters he wanted to achieve. Fake news or fact?

With this reality needing to be addressed, in the United States, screenwriters have already joined together to seek protection in the law, an issue that is being addressed by the WGA-Writers Guild of America. Since it is inevitable, the rules are established right now. The proposal is to allow artificial intelligence to write scripts, “as long as it does not affect the credits or waste of the writers”. I think it’s dubious, after all, whose creation is it?

There is a more conservative faction – which fears losing jobs – and which advocates a total ban on the use of AI technology. The surprise is that the WGA is looking for something intermediate that allows an author to use ChatGPT, but that the service will be seen as something of a “technological support” in the development of a script, which does not take away the creative credit from the author (human ) and does not influence the remuneration, without having to share it with software manufacturers. This folks, it’s about the money more than the creative signature. For now, you will not be allowed to submit a script that is 100% written by an AI program. The question is, when will that also change?

The gray field will not be resolved in its entirety, but already “protecting” the category signals some points. First, when defining Literary material, which is the original content that only the “writer” produces, the law is somehow limiting technological advancement, restricting it to an assistant role, as already mentioned. It is still unclear – at least to me – whether, after AI input, significant changes to the material can be effectively accounted for by the writer alone. In the case of Source material, which are contents adapted from books, plays, or magazine articles, they will not be considered “original script” and the writer will only be credited as “script by”, instead of a “written by” credit.

Subtle, but different. Do you know why? Because “written by” earns residual rights and “scripted by” gets “only” 75%. The proposal in this detail is to anticipate revenue sharing questions because it will prohibit ChatGPT from signing “Source material”, but an author who signs a story written by AI, that is, that “Written by”, still earns 75%. If thinking about fiction already gets in the way, let’s imagine the work of screenwriters for entertainment programs? On a Q&A board, AI can perfectly prepare the material with precision and agility, and whose credit would that be?

Everything still involves more questions than answers, which include image, voice, and appearance control, but for now, the writers are threatening a strike if the issue is not resolved. I don’t think it would be a good alternative to create an opportunity to prove plan B such as ChatGPT stepping in and proving it can handle crises such as this. In a few weeks, we will know the direction to take!